


Thirteen

by lcib



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Mentions of Death, a lot of what ifs, structure games galore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-17 16:54:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29720307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lcib/pseuds/lcib
Summary: The world can end lots of different ways.  In the moments in between, Kara and Lena make a life.
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 3
Kudos: 28





	1. how it goes

**Author's Note:**

> I've never written Supercorp before, so that was fun. Mostly a big structural experiment.
> 
> This first chapter owes a great debt to "One Hundred Things That Might Have Happened" by omiceti. I have been in awe of their ability to make perfect drabbles for years.
> 
> 13 disasters, one hundred words each.

When it was all over, Kara went to the docks. It had been raining since the smoke cleared, probably related to the trauma the planet had weathered. The steady patter of droplets on the bay sounded like whispers. 

An empty tug boat bobbed under the empty bridge. There had been lots of warning. They hadn’t listened and then everyone was gone. Kara hadn’t even gotten to say goodbye. 

She plopped on a damp bench. There would be a time for time travel, alternate universes and broken promises later. For now, she stared out at the flat, speckled water and wept. 

-

“Darling, I have to go.” Lena cupped Kara’s face and kissed her as Kara tried to work her fingers under the waistband of Lena’s skirt, to pull her back to bed. “Kara.”

Kara retreated obediently.

Lena left one hand on Kara’s cheek. “This isn’t going to change things, right?” She always sounded stern when she was nervous.

“No,” Kara promised. She squirmed out of the tangle of sheets and tugged Lena into a tight hug. They fit together the way they always had and she felt Lena relax. “Nothing’s going to change this.” 

Lena found out about Supergirl that afternoon.

-

It had only been on the news until they found one on the balcony. Lena was stepping out, hot coffee in the blue mug, and stopped short with a sharp, breathless, Oh! Kara, getting dressed in the bedroom, had heard something in that Oh! and was there in under a second.

In death, the bird didn’t look like a bird. It was grey brown, one wing half open, its eyes closed.  
“Don’t touch it,” Lena said. “We don’t know what’s killing them.”

So Kara just looked, one hand on the small of Lena’s back, making small circles on her skin.

-

“You’re quiet,” Lena said. “Should I ask?”

Kara liked how considerate Lena was, how she never overstepped. Then she’d catch a glimpse through that accommodating façade to Lena’s fears of being too much or unwanted and she’d wish that Lena would demand more sometimes.

“I want you to ask.” She touched Lena’s hand. “Cat says she’s staying in DC. I’m just bummed. I wanted her to come back.”

Something fell in Lena’s face. “You really loved her.”

Kara shrugged. “She means a lot. I like having her close.”

They didn’t talk about it after that. Cat still didn’t come back. 

-

The building behind Lena wobbled in Kara’s vision. She blinked, choking on a fresh bubble of pain as Alex’s tweezers plucked another kryptonite shard from her arm. 

“You’re okay,” Alex kept saying.

Kara kept looking at Lena, framed by the blown-out window, striking despite the grime and the ill-fitting flak jacket. She grimaced to show Lena she was alright, but Lena didn’t smile back. There was a gun powder stain on her cheek from the shots she’d fired down into the street. They stared at each other as the twilight darkened and another plane circled overhead, its cargo hold glowing green. 

-

With her eyes closed, it still felt the same. If she stretched out her hand, she’d touch the back of the couch where Lena always left her coat. 

Kara opened her eyes. The watery sunlight spilled over the bare floors. It still felt like the space where she’d weathered heartbreaks, had countless dance parties and fallen in love. But now, clean and bare, the apartment was transformed. Soon it would be someone else’s space. Kara’s heart ached.

The door opened. Lena slipped in and put her spare keys on the counter. She took Kara’s waiting hand.

“Ready to go home?”

-

Kara sat on floor. Nia’s Oscar party was in full swing; there was a bowl of goldfish crackers in easy reach, a tumbler of alien rum cradled in her hands and a pleasant warmth in her middle.

“Any bets for best picture?” Kelly asked.

Every year until this one, Kara had seen all the nominees because Lena saw all of them. Lena cared about the lack of diversity and biopics versus epics. This year, Kara didn’t know if Lena was watching the show by herself or at some fancy party. Kara hoped that she wasn’t alone

“No idea,” she said.

-

Kara could break the sound barrier, but there was no way she could save the mug. It was on the floor before she realized what it was falling, smashing with a clatter that didn’t echo in the sunny kitchen. The blue mug that Lena always used, the favorite mug.

Staring down at the ceramic fragments, Kara knew something had ended and they couldn’t get it back.

Lena was already on her feet. “It’s fine,” she said quickly. “I shouldn’t have left it there. Here – “

“No,” Kara touched her arm, never too hard. “Let me. I’m already bullet proof anyway.” 

-

It turned out that Lena’s blood was just the same as every other human. It gushed, hot and wet, between Kara’s fingers, staining Lena’s purple silk blouse.

“Kara.” Lena’s eyes looked past Kara to the ceiling above them.

“You’re going to be fine,” Kara said. “Alex is coming, you’re going to be fine.”

“Just don’t leave me, okay? I don’t want to be alone.” Her eyes focused on Kara’s, blue like a cold winter morning. There were tears of pain gathered at the corners and Kara thought she could drown. She leaned forward, kissing Lena’s still-warm lips again and again. 

-

Lena was still awake when Kara slid into bed, lying on her back, her eyes open in the darkness. After a moment, Kara carefully reached for her hand. Their fingers entwined and Lena squeezed back.

“I didn’t know that’s how you felt,” Kara whispered. “I wouldn’t have brought it up.”

“I know,” Lena said. She took a great shuddering breath. “I know you really like kids.”

“Yeah.” She rolled closer, her head pillowed on Lena’s chest. Lena carded her fingers through Kara’s hair. Her heartbeat was a clock in Kara’s ear.

“What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

-

When Alex said they were half an hour out, Kara woke Lena. 

“I need you to do something for me.”

Lena sat up. She had slept in Kara’s shirt. Kara thought she looked like home.

“Anything.” 

“I know this is so selfish to do when I have to go, but I couldn’t go without telling you and there’s no time. I hate that’s no time, Rao, I’m so sorry.” Her voice broke.

“Hey,” Lena reached for her, still warm from the blankets. “It’s okay. I know. I think I’ve always known.”

When Kara finally kissed her, they both tasted salt.

-

“I thought the world was going to end when you left.”

Lena looked up from her salad. Her smile was fond, but her eyes were faraway and Kara knew she was seeing everything they had lost. Even if it was behind them now, it would always be there. Kara’s mouth filled with more apologies, but they had agreed that had to stop so she swallowed and loved the light in Lena’s hair.

“It didn’t end,” Lena said firmly.

“No, it did.” Kara reached, lightning fast, and stole one of Lena’s croutons. “But that’s okay. This new one looks pretty great.”

-

Aunt Astra’s visits always culminated in story time that stretched long past lights out. Astra had the best stories and Kara needed to hear all of them. There was the one about the amphibians who sang arias, the time that all the birds died, the land where it never stopped raining, the people undone by secrets and people who remade the world for love. Sometimes Astra was the hero, but usually it was other fantastical figures.

“But which ones are real?” Kara would demand.

“All of them,” Astra would say some nights.

“None of them,” Astra would say other nights.


	2. litany

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 26 ways the world ends.

When the end of the world began, Lena never thought it would be Cat Grant.

When the end of the world began, Lena thought, I don’t have enough time.

When the end of the world began, Lena came home to seven new blue mugs in her cupboard.

When the end of the world began, the first explosion made an orchid topple off Lena’s desk and car alarms scream in the street. She got to the window in time to watch Kara plummet out of the sky.

When the end of the world began, Lena was surprised that she didn’t think of her work first.

When the end of the world began, Kara’s eyes in the red sun looked sad instead of scared.

When the end of the world began, Lena carefully folded Kara’s shirt and tucked it in the bottom of her purse. Ten hours later, after Alex had taken her home, asked five times if there was anything else she needed and finally left, she sat on the bed with the shirt in her arms. She pressed the dirty cotton to her face, inhaling the hot, sour scent of Kara before it faded away. 

When the end of the world began, it felt like the rug had pulled out from under her feet. Kara’s laughter hung in the air as the circle of their friends turned towards Lena, waiting for her to agree. Because it was the end of the world, Lena took a deep breath and said she didn’t know if she wanted kids. Her hands were steady as she finished her drink, unable to watch Kara’s face crumble.

When the end of the world began, Lena made sure to apply lipstick.

When the end of the world began, Lena told everyone to calm down. James went stony and silent, Alex kept yelling, and Kara bent the back of Lena’s chair in half. It took a second for Lena realize that the hands that had been so gentle that morning never should have been able to do that. They stared at each other as Kara’s eyes got wider and wider in horror. Lena left the room.

When the end of the world began, Lena said, I don’t know where to go, but if you want, we can go together.

When the end of the world began, Lena couldn’t remember why she’d needed to swing by Kara’s apartment in the middle of the day. The space was empty, Kara was at work. There was a reason Lena needed to be there. She couldn’t remember where she had left the silk grey shell she wanted to wear to the event at the end of the week. She couldn’t find books, pairs of shoes, or the garlic peeler that Kara claimed was superior to all others. Between Kara’s apartment and hers, she couldn’t find her life.

When the end of the world began, it lasted for three days.

When the end of the world began, Lena saw it through Kara’s eyes. She watched them go wide and shiny and unbearably blue. In that moment, she realized that she’d never seen Kara truly scared before. It was an awful sight. Kara’s whole face transformed into something horribly young and vulnerable that made Lena’s heart hurt more than the hole in her side. Kara was saying something to her, but she couldn’t hear it over the look in Kara’s eyes. When the end of the world began, Lena asked Kara to stay.

When the end of the world began, an elephant thundered through the room and no one stopped it.

When the end of the world began, Lena took stock. She sold or gave away most of her possessions. She moved into Kara’s empty apartment and bought new food for the bare fridge. She fixed the leaking roof and started growing herbs in pots on the windowsill. She got a cat. She waited.

When the end of the world began, they were in therapy. Kara was crying, Lena was staring blankly out the window. She realized that their relationship had become a rudimentary algebra problem. In order to solve for X, one side of the equation had to give up everything else. Kara’s shoulders shook and Lena let herself be X.

When the end of the world began, Lena faced the fact that she had never tried s’mores.

When the end of the world began, Lena was alone. She sat up with her book as the apartment filled with darkness and she refused to turn on any lights. Kara came back just before midnight in a burst of frigid air and the sharp acrid smell that Lena associated with the Fortress of Solitude. Her eyes were red from crying and Lena didn’t know how to ask why.

When the end of the world began, Lena thought, this is early.

When the end of the world began, Lena thought, this is late.

When the end of the world began, the bees knew first. The birds followed. Lena joined the board of the Svalbard Seed Vault, increased her employees’ retirement options, and when Kara asked why she looked so tired, she said she was fine.

When the end of the world began, Lena was having the best sex of her life.

When the end of the world began, Lena checked into a Metropolis hotel, put all her things in storage, and declined Clark Kent’s lunch invitation. As summer faded into fall she bought a townhouse, found happiness in going to the movies alone, and declined all of Clark Kent’s subsequent invitations until he finally fell silent.

When the end of the world began, Lena told Kara it didn’t matter. 

When the end of the world began, no one saw it coming.


	3. table music

Sometimes Kara looked at Lena and saw stars.

On empty dark nights when it was just the two of them, they both thought of water.

Lena thought of waves at the beach, perpetually churning, bringing new things to the surface, carving away.

Kara thought of a river, running behind them, through them, ahead of them.

They were both fed by the clouds.

She knew Kara was it for her when she brought her tea in bed.

When they trusted each other enough, Kara flew them up into the darkness until the Milky Way stretched out under their fingertips.

A river of stars.

Lena didn’t take her tea with milk, but Kara did, a steady stream that blossomed in the mug like a galaxy.

Finding their way back to each other was like cleaning up after a flood that had swept through their lives and left all of their carefully stored secrets to dry in the sun.

Sometimes neither of them could say the right thing.

Kara kept all of her rage hidden in a box, but Lena made her feel like she could let it go in the tide.

Sometimes Lena looked at Kara and saw the sun.

*

“Of course it’s going to be me,” Lena said. She didn’t sound upset about it. “You’re bulletproof.”

“Yeah, but,” Kara was having a hard time staying in the present, her brain flickering back to her parents through the plexi-windows of her pod; to the present, Lena’s hand on her thigh; to an unknown future, Lena collapsing, Lena in danger, Lena not getting up.

“Hey,” Lena shook her leg. “Let’s not talk about this.”

“How are you so calm about it?” 

She wasn’t entirely, Kara could hear her heart thudding just a little faster, and there was a line of tense muscle in her jaw.

“Well, think about it, Kara. All my living relatives want me dead, half the public usually agrees with them. I get multiple assassination attempts a year. My work gets warped into something evil.” Her mouth twisted into a self-deprecating smirk, still not looking at Kara. “And I’m not you. I’m not super, I’m just lucky. And luck never lasts forever.”

“You are super.”

“To you.”

“To lots of people.” Kara was aware she was doing that thing where Lena said something vulnerable and then Kara was the one who needed comforting, but she couldn’t stop herself. “I make it worse for you.”

“No.” Lena grabbed her hand, squeezing hard. “Kara, don’t you dare. I want you with me. You make it better. And if you disappear out of some bullshit attempt to be noble, I’ll never forgive you.”

“I can’t protect you if I’m making you even more of a target.”

“I’m not asking you to protect me.” Lena’s face was still perfectly composed and her voice was even, but now Kara heard her heart start to race. She swallowed hard, the way she always did when she was trying not to cry, and Kara felt her resolve crumble.

“I’m not going anywhere.” 

Lena nodded. She took a deep breath and reached for the popcorn. “I can’t believe you still haven’t seen Parasite.”

“It looked scary.”

“It reminds me of my childhood.” 

When Lena’s humor got too dark, the only thing Kara could do was haul Lena into her arms, making her yelp. Lena fought for purchase on the couch, but Kara held on until Lena started to giggle and hugged Kara back.

They finished the popcorn between them and for once Kara didn’t start fidgeting to get more snacks. She shifted to wrap her arms more fully around Lena and gently pressed her forehead to Lena’s temple.

“You’re missing the movie,” Lena tried to say.

“Please don’t leave me,” Kara whispered.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Lena said, but it was clear that Kara was too deep in an uncertain future to come back to the present. Lena wriggled until she could turn off the movie and resettled in Kara’s embrace.

“I love you,” she said and felt Kara tremble. “I love you more than I thought I could love a person.” She licked her lips, tasting the salt and butter from the popcorn and tried to gather her words carefully. “My whole life, I have been left behind by the people who were supposed to stay. I know you know what that feels like.”

Kara nodded.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen in the end, but don’t ask me to be left behind again. I can’t do it, not with you.”

She wanted to hide her face into Kara’s neck, but she kept watching the steady rise and fall of Kara’s chest under her, unable to move. In her head, she saw doors closing and waves crashing. After a long silence, Kara spoke.

“I want to give you everything.”

“I know,” Lena whispered.

“Okay,” Kara said, more a press of air on her skin than a word. She nodded again, kissed her temple and shifted to turn the movie back on. Lena stopped her.

“You’re right, this is too scary. Let’s go to bed.”

*

Sometimes Lena looked at Kara and saw the sun.

Kara kept all of her rage hidden in a box, but Lena made her feel like she could let it go in the tide. 

Sometimes neither of them could say the right thing.

Finding their way back to each other was like cleaning up after a flood that had swept through their lives and left all of their carefully stored secrets to dry in the sun.

Lena didn’t take her tea with milk, but Kara did, a steady stream that blossomed in the mug like a galaxy.

A river of stars.

When they trusted each other enough, Kara flew them up into the darkness until the Milky Way stretched out under their fingertips.

She knew Kara was it for her when she brought her tea in bed.

They were both fed by the clouds.

Kara thought of a river, running behind them, through them, ahead of them.

Lena thought of waves at the beach, perpetually churning, bringing new things to the surface, carving away.

On empty dark nights when it was just the two of them, they both thought of water.

Sometimes Kara looked at Lena and saw stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
